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Grouse Pie

A savory pie with grouse, bacon, ham, mushrooms, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Grouse Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the grouse

  1. Singe and draw the grouse.

  2. Cut off the feet, necks, and pinions of the grouse.

  3. Divide each grouse body into three pieces.

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, fry the grouse pieces with the pinions and chopped bacon.

  2. Add the raw ham, parsley, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt to the pan.

  3. Cook until the ham is done.

  4. Stir in the mushrooms and onion.

  5. Pour in the white wine and reduce the liquid.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the meat in a pie dish.

  2. Add the quartered hard-boiled eggs to the dish.

  3. Pour the gravy over the meat through a strainer.

  4. Cover the mixture with puff pastry.

  5. Brush the crust with egg white.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

Serve

  1. After baking, lift the crust.

  2. Pour in more thickened game gravy.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grouse
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful as it cooks in the filling.
Bacon
Its fat renders into the pan, adding savoury richness and browning the meat.
Raw ham
Adds salty, meaty depth to the filling as it cooks through.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy texture and body to the pie's filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before assembling. Adding the filling to pastry while it is still hot can melt the butter in the puff pastry, preventing it from rising into flaky layers in the oven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parsley, pepper, mushroom, white wine, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, pepper, mushroom, white wine, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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